National Affairs: Step Outside

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Montana Congressman Wesley D'Ewart, now campaigning for the U.S. Senate, last week observed that no Republican senatorial candidate was more than 65*(his own age). Perhaps D'Ewart was struck with the number of superannuated Democratic candidates for the Senate: Kentucky's Alben Barkley (76), Rhode Island's Theodore Green (87), Iowa's Guy Gillette (75)) Wyoming's Joseph O'Mahoney (69). West Virginia's Matthew Neely (79), Virginia's A. Willis Robertson (67), Nebraska's Keith Neville (70), South Carolina's Edgar Brown (66), Kansas' George McGill (75) and, of course, D'Ewart's own opponent, Senator Jim Murray. Murray, stung by the oblique reference to his age, promptly boiled over. Said he: "I'm so decrepit I would welcome D'Ewart to come on this platform, and we'd see who is the old man. I'm willing to give $2.000 to any charity you have if he wants to put on the gloves with me." Replied D'Ewart: "I would not like to endanger the life of a 78-year-old man."